Drink-driving United midfielder banned

Manchester United midfielder Ryan Tunnicliffe has been banned from the road for 18 months after being found guilty of drink-driving.

Tunnicliffe, 19, crashed his Range Rover in to a parked van earlier this month after he had drunk "a lot" of alcohol with his family the night before.

The unoccupied Ford Transit van was shunted five metres (16.4 feet) into a house in Heywood, Greater Manchester, in the incident. A front seat passenger in his car suffered minor injuries, but nobody else was hurt.

Tunnicliffe called the police from the scene shortly after 2.15pm on October 13. A constable noticed that his breath smelt of alcohol. He provided a positive breath test at the scene and then gave a reading of 62mg/100ml, the legal limit being 35mg, at Bury police station.

Tunnicliffe, of Heywood, pleaded guilty to the offence at Bury magistrates court. The court heard that his family and United were "very disappointed" about what had happened.

His ban is likely to be reduced by four months after he indicated that he would be interested in attending a drink-drive rehabilitation course.

He was fined £800 and ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs and an £80 victim surcharge.

Chris Proctor, defending, said: "My instructions are that he had consumed alcohol the evening before and unfortunately, in an error of judgment on his part, he thought he would be below the legal limit and he was able to drive.

"He had some drinks with his family. He generally does not tend to drink alcohol because of his footballing commitments."